


Five Bad Habits Ray Kowalski Couldn't Shake (unfinished)

by china_shop



Category: due South
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Smoking, Unfinished and Discontinued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-10-26
Updated: 2007-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser gave him a clear-eyed reproachful look, and Ray pointed at him with two fingers. "Don't."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Bad Habits Ray Kowalski Couldn't Shake (unfinished)

**Author's Note:**

> In the absence of writing, I get restless and post aborted drafts. This was going to be a flashfic for the Five Things challenge on ds_flashfiction, but Ray was too cranky so I never got much past part 1.

## 1\. 

Fraser's eyebrows went up as soon as he got in the car. He didn't say anything, but Ray knew exactly what he was thinking.

The door shut and Ray peeled away from the curb while Fraser was still fastening his seatbelt. Ray was not going to explain, excuse, justify or any of that. He wasn't. So he said, "Hey. Where's Dief?"

Fraser gave him a clear-eyed reproachful look, and Ray pointed at him with two fingers. "Don't."

For a second, Fraser looked like he was going to argue, but all he said was, "Dief's made friends with old Mrs Jacobi--who has the largest private collection of tropical fish I've come across, including a truly impressive breeding pair of Siamese fighting fish--and they like to watch gardening shows on television together. Apparently there's a special this afternoon on maintaining a herbaceous border."

"Great," said Ray. "So the wolf's watching daytime TV and snacking on goldfish, and we're out here busting our humps tracking down Marky the Mouth. Some dogs have all the luck."

"He is visiting the elderly," Fraser pointed out. "You could think of it in terms of charity work."

"If there's watching TV involved, it don't count as work." Ray parked across the street from the Goombah Bar, and cut Fraser off before he could start listing all known professions that included watching the gogglebox in their job descriptions. "What do you think?"

Fraser raised his eyebrows. "I think not only are you defiling your lungs and putting yourself at risk of at least four kinds of cancer, but you're also denigrating a connection that, while perhaps not productive in the strictest sense of the word, is at least bringing comfort to a lonely woman of advanced years--"

"Fraser!" Ray got out of the car and slammed the door. "Don't give me that. I was talking about the case." He pointed at the bar. "You think he's in there?"

Fraser scratched his eyebrow and looked around. "I think he's heading this way."

"What?" Ray had already started to cross the road. He turned and saw Marky standing thirty yards down the street at the crosslights with a carton of donuts. "Oh. Right."

 

## 2\. 

The next day when Fraser arrived at Ray's desk at the station, he took off his hat, fished in the inside hat band, and pulled out two packets of nicotine gum which he slapped down on Ray's desk like a challenge.

Ray looked from the gum to Fraser and back to the gum, and tried to ignore the way his face was getting hot. "What is that?"

"It's an anti-smoking aid." Fraser put his hat on top of Ray's in-box and sat in the visitor's chair.

"Yeah, I got that memo. Thanks." Ray tried to sound pissy, but it was hard when his heart was going kerthump and his brain was turning gooshy. The dreamcatcher had been one thing -- meant for Vecchio, anyway -- but this was Fraser looking out for him. He started to smile, but then he looked at Fraser properly, like he was seeing him for the first time: earnest, pristine, distant. Ray felt his smile turn upside-down. "Why?"

"As your partner--"

"Unofficial partner," Ray corrected.

Fraser blinked. "I'd say that's arguable, given the circumstances. Regardless, I'd be a poor liaison if I were to let my partner be injured in the course of duty."

"Which partner?" Ray didn't know for sure if Fraser was worried about Ray's cover or worried about Ray's lungs.

Fraser just raised his eyebrows though, and picked up the case file off Ray's desk.


End file.
